Our swan meets Nikki Papandreou,
The Greek Olympic diver
Eye to eye and nose to beak
They keep their poise and watch each other
She waddles to the edge of grace
Submerged, he breasts for air
Wings cut through air,
Arms slice through water
How fierce the thrill
That twists as one?
How strong the force
That separates them?
Jackknifed time entangles
Their fall as flight through space
Becomes reunion of bone and skin and
Hand and feather, a merging and emerging
Yet such ecstasy, transgression,
Cannot queen the body long
This body’s reaching out for that
Still point, where rise turns into fall
The ancient moment, amphibian mind –
Zeno’s paradox suspended
A moment free of up, of down, all
Movement frozen in a blue eternity
Conspirators: qbit, sarasouthwest
qbit’s Renga Challenge – Swan Dive
For Jilly’s October Casting Bricks
Eye to eye and nose to beak
they keep their poise and watch each other
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Awesome. Working.
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She waddles to the edge of grace
Submerged, he breasts for air
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Wings cut through air,
Arms slice through water
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I’m at work, so will be a bit. OK, we’re through the first section, and we have our swan and our diver, engaged with each other and propelled into the world in some parallel way. Do they need each other? Are they two sides of the same coin? What can they learn from each other? We shall see, LOL!
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I like the ideas…
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How fierce is the thrill
That twists them as one?
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Apologies. Had to make soup.
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So, I was grabbing quick glimpses of this between classes today and for a minute there I thought the swan & diver were going to make soup… haha! Enjoying the reading 🙂
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That is still a possibility!
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What happened here?
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Employment interfering with writing, lol!
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Bad job! Bad, bad job!
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Ahahaha! My thoughts exactly!
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Ok, posted my lines.
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How strong is the force
That separates them?
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Oooh, very good. We have some kind of deep push pull. Possibly at the deepest level of physics. The strong and weak nuclear force. What holds us together but keeps us from collapsing.
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Jackknifed time entangles
Their fall as flight through space
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That was my lines btw. I will ponder on the soup situation…
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Becomes reunion of bone and skin and
Hand and feather, a merging and emerging
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OK!!!! Wow, we have something pretty interesting going on here. Somehow we have to complete the dive! We have bird/man merging and emerging in/out of some twisting entanglement. Sure. The rest is obvious, right? LOL!
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But what’s the motivation? And how do we finish this? How many lines have we got left?
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Motivation — I have no idea, LOL! Will give that some thought. As originally set up, we’d have four couplets left — two for me and two for you, with you ending it all with a splash (or without? A clean dive? A splish?) But up to you. Can we answer to the reader why they should care about the fate of our swanperson in eight lines?
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Let’s give it a go. There’s a bit of Icarus in this mix, and definitely a fairytale precursor. Swans are powerful symbols. In England they are all officially owned by the queen, bizarrely.
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Oh man, I’m going to try and use that last tidbit!!!
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http://www.royalswan.co.uk/
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This is way hard. I’ve crossed out more than 30 attempts.
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We can do this! 😊
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A reader’s thought… what is it that emerges from the merger? Ugly duckling? Swan Maiden? Something that breaks the bondage of being ‘owned’ by a Queen? Just a few late night musings.
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Nice musings, Jilly.
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Yes, I was trying much of that too, but I couldn’t make it flow or seem natural. How about this?
Yet such ecstasy, transgression,
cannot queen the body long
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This body’s reaching out for that
Still point, where rise turns into fall
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Ah, nice.
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Thank you. This is something I would never have written on my own. It’s quite exciting.
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Yes, it pulls both writers, one swan, one Greek, out of their normal routines!
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The ancient moment, amphibian mind –
Zeno’s paradox suspended
OK, over to you for the big finish, LOL!
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Now I have to google Zeno’s paradox.
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Ahaha!
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A moment free of up, of down, all
Movement frozen in a blue eternity
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We’re posted! When I can get to a better editor, I’ll add some white space at the end. That came out beautifully!
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Is that big enough?
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Oooh! Yes! Splashdown!
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I will update the post in a bit.
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It’s OK, isn’t it? There’s an image there that works. It was great doing it, too. Thank you.
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It’s perfect! And completely seamless! I love the progression and way it just gets closer and closer to that last line. Funnily, my favorite line is eye to eye and nose to beak. It creates such personality and tension. Thank you for participating! Throw out a line and we can do it again!
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I think the poem arcs to mirror the image, yes. We are fab, aren’t we?
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Yes! We were the swan and the diver, truly.
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That was the best part wasn’t it. That the poem was us.
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I’m definitely up for doing it again!
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Get us started!
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Tomorrow!
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Oh, this is brilliant! You two really worked well on this; two of my favorite poets.
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OK, my friend, I’ve posted a challenge! https://fmmewritespoems.wordpress.com/2017/10/13/renga-challenge-1/
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Let’s go! Post a sara/qbit version and I’ll get started.
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Excellent! 😎😎😎🥀🥀🥀
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